lcstpadawan // cal kestis.
as far as cal knows, neither of them are particularly prepared for what this is becoming. cal knows he’s not. with the republic having turned into the empire while he was so young, cal’s life has been full of trying to keep safe, hiding from the empire, from the inquisitors. and it’s not as though growing up within the order really.. prepared him for how he feels with trilla now. whatever they are, what they’re becoming, he figures they’re discovering it together. which is comforting in itself, for cal at least.
“well yeah, that definitely helps. i mean i doubt i was ever gonna be this friendly with someone who was constantly trying to kill me or use me somehow.” he can’t help but laugh, absolutely no heat behind his words. all of that.. it’s behind them, now. trilla’s a different person now. he doesn’t want to.. rush this conversation though, or whatever sits behind it all. that’s the last thing either of them need. he can understand where she’s coming from. it’s all they’ve ever been told - attachment was never an option for jedi. and when he was younger, he didn’t question it. but things change. he’s changed - they both have. “i do have a loyalty to the order. but i have a loyalty to.. myself and the people i care about, too. i have a responsibility to let myself live my life. the order wasn’t.. always around, and i’m not gonna let myself fall back into thinking my entire life has to be the order and nothing else.” pausing, cal turns his head to look at trilla, suddenly struck by just how close they are - something that brings a comfortable sort of smile to his face. “trilla, i don’t wanna - make some big call on what.. this is. what i know is i like the time we spend together. i’ve liked where things have been going, i like where things are still going. i feel.. different when i’m around you, and it’s not exactly something i want to just throw away. and if you - feel the same, i wanna.. figure out what that can be. i’d want us to figure that out together.”
change was something that trilla had proved nearly too capable of doing –– they had swung so far to the other end of the spectrum that they had become unrecognizable to herself, to the person who had once loved her more than anyone else in the universe. to become dead to cere, after all, prior to sixty-six... had been no easy feat. she had changed so much that she had lost who she was, become a shell of herself to become one of the empire’s finest. when they had finally had enough sense to recognize that, the only solution had seemed to swing back to the other end: to become set in their ways, entirely inflexible. to their credit, it had succeeded them for a while. but now... this, whatever this was –– beyond her particular friendship with cal, but the entire role that she was playing here –– it required flexibility. it didn’t require her to find who she had been before their life had fallen apart, but to become someone different. someone better. there was still a piece of her terrified by that.
“and yet here we both are, dedicating... most of our life to the order, to some extent.” trilla would not go so far as to say that they were loyal to the jedi order, because she wasn’t. but they did have a strong affection and loyalty to the younglings that they had spent months to, something that at the end of the day, did come before herself and her own interests. if they didn’t, they would not have been there in the first place. they were not delusional enough to ignore that any longer. “do you think others in the order are going to be happy with that?” there were many that they had avoided having much conversation with, very intentional. ahsoka and master nu had been exceptions to that, but there weren’t exactly many. there were still those that they held resentment for. trilla drew in a deep breath through their nose quietly, tempering their own reaction, that their own loss of words had her so unsettled. “i won’t pretend i know what any of this really is. but i do begrudgingly care for you, so i suppose i do feel the same.”